Baseball bat with a break resistant structure

ABSTRACT

A baseball bat includes a main body and a reinforced core. The main body is made of wooden materials and is an elongated circular bat including a handle portion, a barrel portion defining a ball hitting portion and an outwardly tapered intermediate portion between the handle portion and the barrel portion. The reinforced core is made of bamboo materials and disposed within the main body extending along the axis thereof. Whereby the bat has a break resistant advantage contributed by the bamboo core to reduce the incidence of breakage.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to baseball bats, and, more particularly, to an improved baseball bat having a break resistant structure.

2. Description of the Related Art

Baseball bats, particularly those constructed of wood, are well known in the art. However, their drawback is that they are easily broken during game play due to a larger shock by the ball. As a result of the drawback of the wooden bats, several alternative baseball bat structures have been developed.

A well-known alternative is to use metal in a ball bat's construction. This has several problems, including particularly the increasing costs of such metal bats and the prohibition against such bats by Major League Baseball.

A lesser-known alternative is proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,827,659 to Chen. Chen disclosed a baseball bat made of bamboo. While this construction is advantageous for strength and other reasons, the problem of ball bat breakage has still not been solved due to the rough fibers and nodes thereof.

For the foregoing reasons, there is still a need for an improved baseball bat that can reduce construction costs and at the same time reduce the frequency of broken bats. The improved bat must at least include a reinforcing structure which reduces the incidence of breakage.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The primary objective of the present invention is to provide a baseball bat which has a reinforcing structure on the critical stress area of a baseball bat to reduce the incidence of breakage.

Another objective of the present invention is to provide an improved baseball bat that can have the all advantages of the wooden materials.

A still further objective of the present invention is to provide a novel break resistant baseball bat that has a vibration absorbing area to reduce the vibration created by impact with a ball, and thereby minimizes the likelihood of breakage.

In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a baseball bat which comprises a main body and a reinforced core. The main body is made of wooden materials so that the bat should have the all advantages of the wooden materials. The main body is an elongated circular bat and includes a handle portion, a barrel portion defining a ball hitting portion, and an outwardly tapered intermediate portion between the handle portion and the barrel portion. The reinforced core is made of bamboo materials and is disposed within the main body extending along the axis thereof. Whereby the bat provided by the present invention can have a break resistant advantage contributed by the bamboo core to reduce the incidence of breakage.

A specific feature of the present invention is that the reinforced core is laminated from a plurality of layers of bamboo plate so that the nodes of bamboo materials will not be fixed on a stationary position.

A still further feature of the present invention is that there is a vibration absorbing area near the ball hitting portion of the bat so that the vibration created by impact with a ball will be reduced, and thereby minimizes the likelihood of breakage.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a baseball bat in accordance with a first preferred embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the baseball bat as shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a longitudinal-sectional view of the baseball bat as shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a longitudinal-sectional view of a baseball bat in accordance with a second preferred embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 is a longitudinal-sectional view of a baseball bat in accordance with a third preferred embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Referring now to the drawings, a baseball bat 10 of a traditional configuration and size is shown. The bat 10 has a main body 20 and a reinforced core 30.

The main body 20 is made of wooden materials, such as ash or maple. The main body 20 has a barrel portion 22 to define a ball hitting portion and a handle portion 24 with a knob 25 on the end thereof. An outwardly tapered intermediate portion 26 forms a transition between the handle portion 24 and the barrel portion 22.

The reinforced core 30 is an elongated rod having a circular cross section and embedded in the main body 20 extending along the axis of the main body 20. In this embodiment, the core 30 is made from five layers of bamboo plate 32 which are laminated together by a suitable adhesive. The diameter of the core 30 is 15 mm and the diameter of the barrel portion 22 of the body 20 is 63 mm.

The layers of bamboo plate 32 may vary somewhat depending upon the style of the bat. As shown in FIG. 3, the core 30 extends through the knob 25 to the very end 28 of the bat 10.

However, as shown in FIG. 4, according the aspect of the present invention, the core 30′ may only extend through the knob 25′ to the barrel portion 22′ to form an internal room 40 near the end 28′ of the body 20′. A stopper 50 is plugged in an opening on the very end 28′ of the body 20′. Thus, when hitting the ball, the area adjacent to the very end 28′ of the body 20′ will be compressed and deform, energy loss due to the ball deformation can be suppressed, and that reduces the stress in the critical stress area which is most likely to break. In addition, as vibration in ball-hitting is absorbed by the internal room 40, batter's hands will not be benumbed.

Further, it must understand that according the aspect of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 5, the internal room 40 of the body 20′ can be filled with a filler 42 made of PU foam or any other suitable materials, to dampen the vibration, in other words, to increase the vibration absorbing performance of the bat in ball-hitting.

In order to verify the effect of the bat according to the present invention, an actual hitting test was conducted, using the bat 10 according to the present invention as described above and a conventional baseball bat made of maple with a barrel portion thereof having a 63 mm diameter.

The actual hitting test was under the condition that a testing bat hit at an impact speed of 90 mile/h against a ball moving at a velocity of 90 mile/h. The result of the test was that the bat 10 did not have any visible cracks after 1200 hits and the conventional bat was broken just after 120 hits.

It is therefore apparent that the present invention discloses a baseball bat with a break resist structure which is a vast improvement over prior art wooden bats and the like. 

1. A baseball bat comprising: an elongated and substantially circular cross sectional shaped main body including a handle portion, a barrel portion defining a ball hitting portion, and an outwardly tapered intermediate portion between said handle portion and said barrel portion; said main body being made of wooden materials; a reinforced core disposed within said main body extending along the axis thereof; and said core being made of bamboo materials.
 2. The baseball bat according to claim 1, wherein said core is an elongated rod having a circular cross section.
 3. The baseball bat according to claim 1, wherein said core extends from said handle portion through said barrel portion to a very end of said main body.
 4. The baseball bat according to claim 1, wherein said core extends from said handle portion to said barrel portion to form an internal room in said main body adjacent to a very end thereof.
 5. The baseball bat according to claim 4, further comprising a filler filled in said internal room for dampening vibration.
 6. The baseball bat according to claim 1, wherein said core is laminated from a plurality of layers of bamboo plate. 